Our Medical Future

Our Medical Future
Author: Jeffrey A. Fisher
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1993-10
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0671738453

An awe-inspiring timetable through the year 2030 of each medical advance that will eliminate both life-threatening disease and everyday ailments, from curing obesity to the approval of the first AIDS vaccine. Based on intensive research and privileged discussion with over 60 experts in specialized fields.

The Future of Public Health

The Future of Public Health
Author: Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1988-01-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309581907

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

2030 - The Future of Medicine

2030 - The Future of Medicine
Author: Richard Barker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2011
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 019960066X

Over the last couple of years, the credit crunch has driven a near-collapse of the world's financial systems. With the benefit of hindsight, many say this could have been predicted and avoided. Over the next 10-20 years, healthcare is headed for its own meltdown: an inability to fund the growth in demand and the appearance of costly new medical technology within the current healthcare systems framework. This 'meltdown' will not be as sudden as that in the world of finance: it will occur over the next 20 years, but the failure of the current sources of healthcare funding to meet our expectations of care quantity and quality will have consequences every bit as serious as the banking crisis. The warning signs are there, the crisis is already being predicted - but is it inevitable, or can it be avoided? This book offers a penetrating analysis of the underlying problems, and offers some simple, but far-reaching solutions to bring supply and demand back into balance and avoid the meltdown. It is not a contribution to the current political debate but a primer for the changes to the underlying fabric of healthcare if reforms such as Obamacare have any chance of sustainable success. In the course of the book, we confront many topical challenges: How can people be persuaded to manage their own health better?; Can we afford to spend more of today's money on disease prevention and detection, to save future costs?; Will 'personalised medicine' be cheaper, or more expensive?; Are healthcare IT systems a key part of the solution or doomed to be expensive white elephants?; and most importantly: What will the future of healthcare look like, for us and for our children and grandchildren? To bring the answers to this final question alive, the book uses a fictitious family, the Carters, to illustrate the changes we will see, the dilemmas we will face and the solutions we must strive for. Interspersed between the text are the vignettes of members of the family, their diseases and treatments and how change has affected each of their lives.

The Patient Will See You Now

The Patient Will See You Now
Author: Eric Topol
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0465094473

The essential guide by one of America's leading doctors to how digital technology enables all of us to take charge of our health A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You'll make an appointment months in advance. You'll probably wait for several hours until you hear "the doctor will see you now"-but only for fifteen minutes! Then you'll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you'll likely never see, unless they indicate further (and more invasive) tests, most of which will probably prove unnecessary (much like physicals themselves). And your bill will be astronomical. In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation's top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Instead, you could use your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor, all at a small fraction of the cost imposed by our modern healthcare system. The change is powered by what Topol calls medicine's "Gutenberg moment." Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which "doctor knows best." Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized. Computers will replace physicians for many diagnostic tasks, citizen science will give rise to citizen medicine, and enormous data sets will give us new means to attack conditions that have long been incurable. Massive, open, online medicine, where diagnostics are done by Facebook-like comparisons of medical profiles, will enable real-time, real-world research on massive populations. There's no doubt the path forward will be complicated: the medical establishment will resist these changes, and digitized medicine inevitably raises serious issues surrounding privacy. Nevertheless, the result-better, cheaper, and more human health care-will be worth it. Provocative and engrossing, The Patient Will See You Now is essential reading for anyone who thinks they deserve better health care. That is, for all of us.

The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century

The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2003-02-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309133181

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

The Future of Nursing

The Future of Nursing
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 700
Release: 2011-02-08
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309208955

The Future of Nursing explores how nurses' roles, responsibilities, and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in America's increasingly complex health system. At more than 3 million in number, nurses make up the single largest segment of the health care work force. They also spend the greatest amount of time in delivering patient care as a profession. Nurses therefore have valuable insights and unique abilities to contribute as partners with other health care professionals in improving the quality and safety of care as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted this year. Nurses should be fully engaged with other health professionals and assume leadership roles in redesigning care in the United States. To ensure its members are well-prepared, the profession should institute residency training for nurses, increase the percentage of nurses who attain a bachelor's degree to 80 percent by 2020, and double the number who pursue doctorates. Furthermore, regulatory and institutional obstacles-including limits on nurses' scope of practice-should be removed so that the health system can reap the full benefit of nurses' training, skills, and knowledge in patient care. In this book, the Institute of Medicine makes recommendations for an action-oriented blueprint for the future of nursing.

The Future of Health Services Research

The Future of Health Services Research
Author: National Academy of Medicine
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-09-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9780309705226

Health services research is "the multidisciplinary field of scientific investigation that studies how social factors, financing systems, organizational structures and processes, health technologies, and personal behaviors affect access to health care and the quality and cost of health care." Since the 1960s, health services research has provided the foundation for progress, effectiveness, and value in health care. Ironically, at a time in which appreciation has never been higher for both the need and potential from health services research, the political and financial support for sustenance and growth appear to be weakening. With funding support from AcademyHealth, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Board of Family Medicine, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this National Academy of Medicine Special Publication identifies the range of issues that health services research must consider, address, and potentially overcome to transform the field to meet the needs of a 21st-century health care system. These issues are broad, multidisciplinary, and will require a coordinated effort to address?as well as dedicated and sustainable funding. Federal support for health services research has never been more critical. Now is a critical time for the field to articulate its priorities, demonstrate its utility, and transform to meet the needs of a 21st-century health care system. The physical and financial health of the nation is at stake.

Medical Education for the Future

Medical Education for the Future
Author: Alan Bleakley
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-02-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9048196922

The purpose of medical education is to benefit patients by improving the work of doctors. Patient centeredness is a centuries old concept in medicine, but there is still a long way to go before medical education can truly be said to be patient centered. Ensuring the centrality of the patient is a particular challenge during medical education, when students are still forming an identity as trainee doctors, and conservative attitudes towards medicine and education are common amongst medical teachers, making it hard to bring about improvements. How can teachers, policy makers, researchers and doctors bring about lasting change that will restore the patient to the heart of medical education? The authors, experienced medical educators, explore the role of the patient in medical education in terms of identity, power and location. Using innovative political, philosophical, cultural and literary critical frameworks that have previously never been applied so consistently to the field, the authors provide a fundamental reconceptualisation of medical teaching and learning, with an emphasis upon learning at the bedside and in the clinic. They offer a wealth of practical and conceptual insights into the three-way relationship between patients, students and teachers, setting out a radical and exciting approach to a medical education for the future. “The authors provide us with a masterful reconceptualization of medical education that challenges traditional notions about teaching and learning. The book critiques current practices and offers new approaches to medical education based upon sociocultural research and theory. This thought provoking narrative advances the case for reform and is a must read for anyone involved in medical education.” - David M. Irby, PhD, Vice Dean for Education, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; and co-author of Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency "This book is a truly visionary contribution to the Flexner centenary. It is compulsory reading for the medical educationalist with a serious concern for the future - and for the welfare of patients and learners in the here and now." Professor Tim Dornan, University of Manchester Medical School and Maastricht University Graduate School of Health Professions Education.

Informing the Future

Informing the Future
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2011-10-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309215366

This report illustrates the work of IOM committees in selected, major areas in recent years, followed by a description of IOM's convening and collaborative activities and fellowship programs. The last section provides a comprehensive bibliography of IOM reports published since 2007.

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030
Author: National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9780309685061

The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.